Netflix is starting to find some success in their first crop of Bravo-style reality shows, but with Styling Hollywood, it looks like they’re trying to shake up the formula established by Andy Cohen and company in the ’00s. Read on to find out why this series is different than most of the ones that have come before it…

STYLING HOLLYWOOD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see a number of women on various red carpets, including Taraji P. Henson, Yara Shahidi and Ava DuVernay. With DuVernay, we see her stylist jump in to adjust her dress. That’s Jason Bolden.

The Gist: Bolden and his husband, Adair Curtis, own JSN Studio together (JSN is Jason without the vowels). It’s an interesting business because it provides two seemingly disparate services: Jason is a celebrity stylist, finding dresses and accessories for his high-profile clients to wear at awards ceremonies and premieres; while Adair is an interior designer, renovating massive houses for A-list clients.

As you might expect in a show like this, the dynamic between the two is fascinating. The two of them are both outgoing, but Jason is more of a character and Adair is more buttoned-down. They have their spats and disagreements, like any long-term couple does, and they have no problem arguing with each other about what really happened during their first date (Adair holds up one finger when Jason says something true, two when Jason says something embellished).

The staff at JSN is colorful as well; Kafia, the operations manager, is an old friend of Adair’s, and the two of them snipe at each other all the time. Adair is concerned she’s too busy doing work for outside clients to concentrate on JSN. John is a new assistant that Jason poached from one of his biggest suppliers of designer gowns. And Melinda is a former model from Norway who is much more interested in helping Adair with the design work than trying on gowns for Jason.

It’s Emmys week, and Jason has clients Henson, Shahidi, and Zazie Beetz walking the carpet; he wants to make sure the “Black Girl Magic” he fosters with the styling choices he makes for his clients continue. Shahidi and Beetz seem to be set, but Jason is trying to get a one-of-a-kind white gown for Henson, and has no backup. She’s flying in the day of the Emmys, so there’s very little time to fit her. He gets the dress at the last minute, but when Melinda puts it on, he finds a huge hole in a seam, and John takes his sweet time getting it to the seamstress.

Meanwhile, Adair is designing the interior of a house for Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade. He’s old friends with “Gab”, which shows as she jokes around at the five-figure prices of furniture pieces they look at in a high-end store.

Our Take: Netflix is really trying hard to invest in Bravo-style reality shows, where personality mixes with the glitz and glamour of the one percent. But while Selling Sunset felt like just another show about rich people behaving like jerks, Styling Hollywood (we sense a pattern with Netflix’s titles, don’t you?) feels like a breath of fresh air.

Why? Because it shows a Black same-sex power couple working with a largely Black clientele to enhance the “Black Girl Magic” Jason talks about. What Netflix and EPs Carlos King, David George, Jordana Hochman and Angela Rae Berg are trying to do is present all this as just another facet of celebrity life in Los Angeles, not pointing to any part of the show as something revolutionary. And, in that regard, it’s a smashing success.

It helps that Jason and Adair are an entertaining pair, more than willing to bring their squabbles in front of the camera. Jason is especially fun to watch, with his devil-may-care personality that mixes with a dead seriousness about finding the right dresses and accessories for his clients. He’s a mess when Henson’s dress starts pulling apart, but he works all night to make sure it’s ready and to get a backup in case it’s not. His reputation is at stake, after all.

Could the supporting cast be a bit more dynamic? Definitely. John really feels like he was hired just for the purposes of the show, and Kafia is there to have Adair fire her every other episode. Melinda is intriguing, only because she’s not interested in being a model anymore, but Jason keeps using her as a living mannequin. We’ll see how much they contribute as things go forward. But they’re in an uphill battle against the chemistry between Jason and Adair and the celebrity clients that appear on camera.

Photo: Netflix

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: Henson texts Jason that she just landed in L.A., 16 hours before the Emmys, and he has no dress for her to wear.

Sleeper Star: Why can’t Gabrielle Union be as funny in her acting roles as she is while walking around the furniture store with Adair? “What in here is within the black actress budget?” She points to a decorative “F” on the wall: “Can I get the F? F for Frugal?” She and Wade recently had a daughter via surrogate and she’s helping Jason and Adair find one; when Adair says that he’s afraid he’s going to do all the work, she tells him that “We call it ‘lead parenting’. Somebody’s a lead parent and gets shafted.”

Most Pilot-y Line: As usual, some of the conversations seem to be, shall we say, “encouraged” to happen or re-happen by the producers. But that’s part and parcel of the reality genre; it’s just that viewers are better able to suss that out than they were able to do 15 years ago.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Jason Bolden and Adair Curtis are a fascinating pair, and JSN Studio is a fascinating business, so Styling Hollywood will go as far as they take it. But we’re also looking forward to seeing some appearances by more of their famous clientele, like Eve (who we watch on The Talk… really!) and DuVernay.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.